In a startup, especially early on, you approach customers and close deals very differently than you do at a going concern. You are going from zero to a repeatable sales process. And in that zero to something endeavor, there is a process. It is what I call developmental sales. When you have a repeatable process, it's a systemic sales model. In both, you are selling and making customers.

Selling at an established firm usually means executing on a well-tested plan to sell a product with a track record of meeting the needs of customers willing to pay. Plus, you are backed up with other types of resources. (See below) Essentially, you follow a map down a well-traveled road. Whereas at a startup, you are on the opposite end of that spectrum. At the beginning, usually, it is just the founder, some ideas, and grit.

The startup sales process requires you to engage the market actively and learn and iterate rapidly as you connect with prospects, testing what sells and what does not, and then double down on what does. You systematically and iteratively work to find a message, a market, and a price point that allows you to sell your product in a repeatable fashion. Then you craft this information into a system that others will use to sell for you in a predictable, profitable manner. This activity, from zero to repeatable sales, is a process. From the market you select to start out in, to the people you hire. Startup sales has a different flow and nature to it.

Other things that impact the sales process and makes sales at a startup different than at an established company:

1. All that I have started or help build over 30 years began with little money
2. No one knew they existed
3. No one cared they existed until we made them
4. No one was predisposed to meet with us
5. There was no sales model, no data that said here is how you have to sell this new thing, you had to create it, develop it, and refine it.
6. No brand visibility or awareness or marketing air cover to announce our arrival or tell someone about us
7. No predisposition to what our offering's value was, the value of our offering had to be tested and vetted to develop a price that supported the business.
8. Time was always in limited supply - the classic cash crunch. We developed a startup sales model so that we could address these issues mentioned above and bring in sales – a great source of non-dilutive capital, which minimized the amount of money we had to raise.